YES! Picks :: Our Favorite Cookbooks

Home cooking with fresh, seasonal ingredients is an important part of a sustainable food system. Your own kitchen can be the most delightful place to join the local food revolution.

That's why the staff at YES! put together the ultimate cookbook shelf. Take a look and bon appetit!

Family Cookbook :: The New Basics :: Feeding the Whole Family :: Pretend Soup

Our best recipe book is the one we've made ourselves, and added to over the years. My mother-in-law wrote in many of her favorite recipes for us. It's well-thumbed, and well-stained, always a good sign!

Other personal favorites include The New Basics Cookbook: every couple of months I tackle their vegetarian lasagne, which is an all-day project.

Cynthia Lair's Feeding the Whole Family has provided us with a range of great options for healthy food that even a fussy 5-year-old will enjoy.

And if you're looking to introduce children to cooking, a great place to start is with Pretend Soup, full of simple but fun recipes in picture form that even the youngest child can 'read' and follow. —Adam MacKinnon, Online Editor

This is the book I reach for when I wander into the kitchen at the end of a hectic day, less for dazzling recipes than for its calming influence.

La Place invites me to relax in my lived-in kitchen and return to the simple, authentic joys of cooking. After she displays her own kitchen and pantry (which includes her grandmother's old, rickety colander), you will look with new fondness at your chipped mixing bowls and worn cutting board. She conjures up the sensual pleasure of unfussy foods and convincingly makes the case for minimal kitchen gadgetry. No food processors or measuring cups here: measure with fistfuls and pinches and with whatever spoons and cups are handy. No plastic wrap here: cover your bowls with plates. Tucked between pages are snippets of food memories and musings.

The Moosewood Restaurant Cooks for a Crowd: Recipes with a Vegetarian Emphasis for 24 or MoreMoosewood Collective, Wiley, 1996

I live in a cohousing neighborhood, and often need to cook for 20-40 people. This book is great for sizing recipes, and it offers vegetarian options. Each recipe includes nutrition information and cook and prep times. —Audrey Watson, Online Managing Editor

A modern Joy of Cooking. It's the cookbook we usually start with, giving us enough knowledge about most foods and basic recipes to make the most of any ingredients that come our way, or to create something out of the pantry! His new book, Food Matters: A Guide to Conscious Eating with More Than 75 Recipes, sounds perfect for the times and for many YES! readers. —Rod Arakaki, Business Manager

I used to work at a cooking store and school, and we always recommended How to Cook Everything. The book has very simple, easy recipes that taste great—it’s perfect for beginners. I still use it almost every day.—Laura Kaliebe, Online Editorial Intern

Every chapter of Abu-Jaber's memoir revolves around one or two delicious recipes. As she tells stories from her childhood spent both in suburban America and in Jordan, you can almost smell the roasted lamb with spices her dad would prepare for the extended family. Recipes are adapted for ingredients available here, and range from elaborate Jordanian sweets to the best grilled cheese. —Lilja Otto, Associate Online Editor

I have a few Filipino recipes that my grandmother wrote down on a notepad. Of course, there are no exact measurements, just ingredients. This is especially true for her lumpia recipe—everyone has their very own secret filling. I treasure that she wrote down her ingredients, and now they are mine, too.—Jing Fong, Education Outreach Manager

The New Vegetarian EpicureAnna Thomas, Knopf Publishing Group, 1996

I *love* cookbooks—and I have to stop myself from continuing to get more of them.

My favorite cookbooks are those where the author has a really strong voice, and you feel like they're sharing their best cooking tips and wisdom with you. I also enjoy those cookbooks that provide a context for a dish—either suggesting a full menu, or tossing out ideas about complementary flavors.

The New Vegetarian Epicure is one that I always come back to: This cookbook is so full of elegant menus and delicious dishes, I never get tired of looking through it. No pictures, but expertly described recipes.—Susan Gleason, Media & Outreach Manager

Most recipes have 5 steps or fewer, with half a dozen ingredients. I can concentrate on my creation, rather than losing my place in a long, complicated recipe. The photos are beautiful, the dishes are low-stress but yummy and elegant. —Jessica Lind-Diamond, Development Coordinator

My favorite is a classic relic of the 70's (I have the 1972 edition), because that's when I really learned how to cook. I love it because it has chapters like "Know Your Ingredients" and "About" sections that introduce every grouping of recipes—"About Custards," "About Proofing Yeast Dough," "About Canning Processes" etc. Forget the recipes; it's a wealth of information about the science and process of cooking that's so basic to both good cooking and improvisation.—Sharon Booth, Circulation Design Manager